Category — Uncategorized

We took the twins to orientation last week. Or… really one kid. The other didn’t have orientation at their school, so we hung out and read by the river while the other child learned how move-in would work and their way around campus.

There was an optional program for parents, but the kid worried that no other parents would attend and we would look strangely overprotective. We dropped them off with a breezy promise that they would take tons of notes. We watched a few parents go upstairs to their separate sessions; it was too late to join them because registration was closed.

I felt myself starting to hyperventilate, so we went outside so I could fall apart.

It’s a strange balance of being proud that I raised them to be self-sufficient and confident but also an empty feeling as they leave behind two they-shaped holes. The pain is physical along with emotional. I feel this horrible ache as they peel away.

It has been ten years since Google Reader closed. Social media is often blamed for the decline in blogging, but I think closing Google Reader contributed to the mass exodus to Facebook updates. Make it hard to read blogs, and people will stop reading blogs. Alas.

I have been happy with Feedly for the last ten years — maybe even happier with Feedly than I ever was with Google Reader, despite all of my fears ten years ago when Google made their announcement.

The Verge had a retrospective on the feed reader: Its life and death.

Someone posted this, and it made me think about the books I read over and over again vs. the books I only read once but still want to own.

I only have a few books that I reread over and over again, but one of those books — or, really, a trilogy of books — is The Magicians by Lev Grossman. I am in a constant state of rereading or relistening (because I bought the audiobooks, too) to the books because it’s an enjoyable experience. Like getting a massage. What back is satiated with getting one massage ever? None. Rereading the story is a pleasurable experience because I enjoy my time with the words.

But it’s also somewhat a personal bible, a way to understand hope and desire and relationships differently with each reread. I don’t just learn something new about the characters with each reread. I learn something different about myself. How I understand my time on earth or how to mourn or get through a difficult situation. The books have… well… not to be dramatic. The books have saved me.

I remember when I first heard about them, I drove to several stores the same night to pick up paper copies. Josh was at home with the twins, who were babies at the time, and I kept thinking with each store that I should go back. But then I would get behind the wheel and drive to another bookstore farther away until I owned all three books and could come home.

So, no, it’s not worth rereading every book, but choosing a handful that define who you are can be life-changing.

Do you have a personal bible, too, and what is it?

I was talking with a friend about how we both never leave the house, but after we got off, I felt guilty because I hadn’t gotten the mail in at least a week. I decided that I was going to put on my big girl panties and get the mail like a grownup.

But there were two crickets — CRICKETS — on my car: a small brown one and a big green one. I almost returned to the house, but a wave of guilt again hit me. I was going to get the mail. But I would enter the car from the passenger side to avoid the crickets.

They watched me from atop the side mirror while I drove.

My low tire pressure light went on.

The big green cricket hopped off and landed (likely) on the driver’s door. Just waiting for me to put air in my tires so it could jump into my hair and kill me.

I pulled up to the post office and pretended that I was checking out something on the passenger side, so I looked halfway normal to the people who were all parked and sitting in their cars for some reason. I casually slipped out the side door, grabbed the mail, and returned to enter through the passenger side, pretending I was just chilling in a parking lot. Don’t mind me. This is totally normal to enter through the side door and slide behind the wheel.

Josh told me he would meet me at the gas station to put air in the tires so I could avoid the big green cricket. But right when we met at the gas station, the skies opened up, and it began pouring. He slid into my front seat, and we sat for a half hour, watching the rain thump down against the windshield. “This is why I never go out. If you never go out, you never encounter situations like this.”

So true.

There was a tiny break in the rain, so we drove over to the air pump, and Josh unscrewed the cap on the first tire. The sky was just joking. Two seconds later, the sky opened again and dumped on him. Within seconds, his clothes were plastered to his body. He wins an award for saving me from the tenacious big green cricket. I mean, he never found him, but I’m sure he was lurking somewhere. The little brown cricket crawled behind the side mirror, so I’m sure he was plotting something.

In any case, this is why I never leave the house.

I’ve been compiling life advice for the twins. Whenever I think of something they should know, I jot it down in a digital note. Of course, after I do that, I realize that a rambling letter from their mother is not the best way to convey important life advice. This probably isn’t the first time they should be hearing some of these things, but in some cases, it is.

I should have started earlier.

But would it have meant anything if not read with one foot out the door?

Some of it is practical, such as how to not make enemies in the dorm laundry room:

Get back to your laundry at least five minutes before it’s due to be finished.

Other items are more amorphous:

Apologize when you should apologize. Just because someone isn’t bringing something up doesn’t mean it’s over. It may mean they’re just not bringing it up and letting it grow inside their head. Apologize so that fire has no oxygen.

I would drop them in individual notes to open randomly, but they probably need all these thoughts from day one. So I’m putting them together to read and use and pass along.